Ghosts in the Light – Benjamin Stanford and Bruce Tetsuya

Something shifts when you lean into the middle spaces; an internal landscape opens up in that liminal boundary that exists between reality and the edge of perception when you seek to find it. The ethereal dwelling of spirit and energy, rarely seen but felt deeply by many, is often revealed to us in certain moments and in flashes of recognition. Light, smoke, atmosphere, and phenomenon become our guide to navigation, gripping onto the ineffable in order to make sense of something impossible to fully understand.

This is the space that the work of Benjamin Stanford and Bruce Tetsuya occupy. Grounded within both bodies of work are the human presence: the passenger who moves the vessel forward and is open to accepting and translating ephemeral information. Hands act as a conduit of transportation and translation, disembodied and yet connecting back to the whole human body, something that then has the potential to dissipate in the end. The ghostly nature of the works on view are easy to see and to feel and yet so very hard to place in a space of known reality. 

A balance of brilliant light and rich darkness haunt these works, showcasing fleeting moments of beauty and intangibility, while creating a home for rest, deep thought, and sustained action. A sense of intentional building and hiding something away for a future use. 

Tetsuya and Stanford have a keen understanding of what lies beyond the world of the apparent. A sort of absorption and negotiation happens within their practice, a skill that allows the collective unconscious to be translated through their eyes and presented back to the viewer to reinterpret in tandem with felt experiences.